by Robert Beers
Cloutier leaned back in his saddle. “Sixteen summers? That many?”
Charity knew he was teasing, and felt powerless to stop it. Flynn and Neely were obviously petrified. “I'm good at what I do, my lord.”
“I'm sure you are.” Cloutier allowed the rank to snicker at his innuendo. “What sort of assistance did you give this Butcher, eh?”
“I made sausages, my lord.”
“Sausages?” Cloutier's voice rose in mock amazement. “Such a skill!” He turned to the rank, and spread his arms wide. “Behold! She makes sausages!” The rank broke out in derisive laughter. Cloutier smiled his cruel smile again, and leaned forward, resting his right arm on the pommel of the saddle. “And pray tell me, my lady. What do your two stalwart companions do?”
Charity stole a look at Flynn and Neely. Their faces were death masks.
Cloutier's patience was just shy of being nonexistent. “Tell me!”
His roar broke Flynn and Neely out of their trace. Flynn stepped forward and knuckled his brow. “Beggin’ yer pardon, m'lord. I be Flynn o’ Northlake, Sire. Me da apprenticed me to a Cooper, ‘e did. I kin make a good barrel, I kin, m'lord.”
“Barrel maker, eh? What about you, fellow?” Cloutier pointed at Neely.
Neely tore his hat off his head, and worried it with his hands. Charity could see sweat bead his brow. He swallowed and stepped forward a half step. “Neely, milord. Grisham is where I hail from. I be a soldier of fortune an’ tracker, iffn’ you need one, sire.”
Cloutier leaned back again, and appraised them for a moment. He rubbed his chin. The signet ring on his hand glinted in the light. “A Cooper, a Soldier of Fortune and a Sausage Maker. Such riches my poor city doesn't deserve.” The rank sniggered.
He leaned forward again. Charity thought, “Can't this man keep still for a moment? He's like a Wobbledy Bob.”
“I really should have you locked away for the vagrants you are.” Cloutier dismissed them with a wave of his hand and the tone of his voice. “But, I am feeling generous this morning. I will offer the two of you,” He jabbed a finger at Flynn and Neely. “One hundred golds each if you will turn this doxie of yours over to my gentle hands.”
Charity felt a wave of ice grip her heart. The memory of the Avernese soldier flooded forward, and she reeled under its impact. She knew that no matter what happened, she would not allow this Lord, in her mind the word became a curse, to take her without blood being shed.
Flynn and Neely were thunderstruck. A hundred golds! Why, a man could retire on such wealth. Each of them had a vision of wine, women and song run through him, and then a vision of their mistress in the clutches of the Lord who sat before them pushed it aside.
Neely put his hat back onto his head and straightened his stance. “I'm sorry, my lord, but she ain't mine to sell.”
Flynn knuckled his brow again, and glanced at Charity. “And so say I, m'lord. Sorry.”
Charity's right hand reached for an arrow, as she hid the movement behind Flynn's bulk.
“I'm sorry, too, my good man.” Cloutier's predatory smile belied the text of his words. He nodded to the rank, and they began to advance with their halberds at point.
Flynn and Neely drew their knives, and placed themselves between Charity and the guardsmen. A halberd was thrust at Neely's face. He ducked and forced the point of it to the side with the broad side of his knife. Flynn trapped one beneath his left arm, and using his right hand lifted the guardsman holding it off the ground, and slammed him against the shop wall.
“Take them now, you fools!” Cloutier yelled at them as he attempted to steady his horse in the melee.
Charity nocked an arrow, and scanned the crowd. The last thing she wanted to do was skewer an innocent onlooker, and a considerable number of people had gathered to see this latest bit of street theater.
An apple was thrown in their direction from the crowd. It spattered against the wall next to Neely. He was bleeding from a couple of cuts, and beginning to look tired, but his knife continued to weave a curtain of steel between himself and the rank. Flynn had lost his knife due to a bad cut from a halberd, and had to make do with his hands and his strength of arm, which was considerable. He reached out over the halberds being waved in his face, and grabbed the two guardsmen by their collars, cracking their heads together. The sound was like that of a melon being dropped from a balcony.
A guardsman caught Neely in the pit of his stomach with the butt of his pike. He doubled over and began to retch. Bile and half-digested sausages spattered onto the cobblestones. Another guardsman raised his halberd to finish the job. Charity's arrow passed through his left eye.
Flynn called out to Charity. “Push up behind me, miss. I'll try to clear a path for ye.” He turned his head to make sure she heard him, and the flat side of a halberd caught him alongside the skull, dropping him like a stone.
Charity was grabbed from both sides. Rough hands attempted several indignities, while others disarmed her. She screamed and thrashed about, catching one of the rank in his belly with the toe of her boot. Another of them would probably need several days before he could talk again.
“Hold the bitch steady, now.” A guardsman whose arms were covered in thick black hair raised his pike like a spear. Charity saw her death approaching. At least I'll see Adam soon, She thought.
“Hold that pike, or you'll lose your head!” Cloutier's command whipped across the rank.
The hairy guardsman lowered his weapon. “You're a lucky one, whore.” He spat the word. “That was me brother you killed. Once the Earl finishes with you, you're my meat, I promises you. Remember that!”
Cloutier turned his horse in a half circle, and surveyed the damage. Seven of his guardsmen lay still, and three others kneeled, groaning. Perhaps the two with the chit were worth something after all. His gaze stopped on the guardsman with the arrow in his socket. No wonder his master was worried about her. To be such a marksman at only sixteen summers ... Ah, well. He had his orders.
He pulled his rapier and pointed to Flynn and Neely with it. “Take them to the gaol and have their wounds seen to. Take the doxie to my Palace, and give her over to Morgan's care. Be sure he gets her weapon, as well. If I find any of you have taken liberties, I will have myself a new pair of boots, am I clear in this?” The paleness of the surviving guardsmen told him all he needed to know.
He looked down at Charity. She glared back. “I see you have a lot of fire, milady. We'll have to make sure it stays there until you are ready. Take her away.”
Charity struggled in the grasp of her guards. “I hate you.” She screamed at Cloutier. “I hate you.”
He smiled and groomed an eyebrow as she was dragged away. “Two years is a long time.” He mused to himself. “I can hardly wait.”
* * * *
“Oooo. My ‘ead feels like it was horse stomped.” Flynn groaned and pulled himself to his feet using the bars of the cell.
“At least you still have your breakfast inside you.” Neely reclined on one of the two cots that graced the cell floor.
Flynn looked over at his friend. Both of his hands and arm were bandaged. He felt his head gingerly. Another bandage was wound around his head and his right forearm.” Aye. I guess we should be glad we're still breathin'. You OK, Neely?”
Neely placed a hand on his stomach.” I've been better, Flynn. I ever tell you ‘bout the time I was captured by them wimmin outlaws in the Longwood?”
Flynn's eyes brightened at the prospect of one of Neely's stories. “Can't say you have, Neely. What ‘appened?”
“Well, now...” Neely settled into his tale, forgetting the pain in his belly. “Their leader, Aphrodite was her name, if I recall. She had a powerful need ta have a baby. I remember her jugs, she coulda nursed a village, I reckon. Well, she was gonna have me skinned along with the rest o’ me group. That is, until she saw the size o’ me other leg, iffn’ you catch me drift.”
Flynn chuckled. “That I do, Neely, That I do.”
“Well, being a gentl
eman at heart...”
* * * *
The morning sun pierced Ethan's eyelids like a hot blade. He flopped his arm over his face, and tried to fall back to sleep. From past experience he knew what awaited him if he awoke fully after a night of drink.
“Mama. He moved.” A little girl's voice? Ethan used his other hand to gingerly feel around where he lay. He remembered ... a goat and ... some hay ... and a nice jug of fortified wine and ... a chicken? What he felt was none of those. Where was the hay? The mud? The goat droppings? He felt clean linen over ticking under him.
He cracked an eye, and pulled his arm up to his forehead.
“He moved again, mama!”
Ethan was greeted by two huge hazel eyes in a cherubic face framed with a mass of curly chestnut hair.
“Hi, man.” The face spoke. The voice matched the face.
“Hi.” His voice sounded like it was coming from the grave.
“His breath stinks, mama!”
“Hush, Sari. Move aside now.” A calico skirt filled his vision, and a cool cloth blocked it entirely. “This should help your head feel better.” The voice was a woman's, low and soft with a throaty quality that he found soothing.
“Thank you.” He moved his arm so his hand pressed the coolness into his forehead. “Why?”
Her soft laugh was self-deprecating. “I have a habit of picking up strays, and nursing them back to health. You looked to be in need of picking up.”
“You could have left me. One night with the goats and the chickens wasn't going to hurt me.”
“You don't know...?” Her breath caught, and she stopped her sentence.
Ethan, now alarmed, tried to sit up, and gasped with the pain and lay back. He'd felt it before. He'd been stabbed, deeply. The memory joined the others. Boots ... and a blade, and then darkness. “My pouch?”
“You had none when I found you.” She replaced the cloth with a deft hand.
“Are you a physic? Who sewed me up?” He tried to see more of his surroundings.
“Hush, you'll tear the stitching.” She stilled him with a hand to his upper chest. He saw her fingers from beneath the cloth. Slender, but strong looking. The glint of hard calluses said she'd spent most of her life working.
“I milked the goat, mama.” Another child's voice, a little older than the first one; two summers, maybe.
“Thank you, Circumstance. Go see how Jonas is doing. There's a good boy.”
“Yes, mama.” The boy sounded so serious. Ethan wondered how he played.
“You have three?” He grunted as she checked the wound.
“I'm sorry. It must be painful, but I see no infection. Yes, I have three children.” She finished retying his bandage, and he felt her stand up.
“Jonas, Circumstance and ... Sari?”
He heard her soft laugh again, “Your memory, at least, is not damaged.”
Laughing hurt.
* * * *
Charity screamed and threw another vase at the wall. It shattered nicely, but did nothing to soothe her temper.
“That vase was over a thousand years old, milady, and I believe it cost your Lord over a thousand golds to purchase.”
“Good!” Charity turned and hissed her reply at the taciturn man leaning against the wall. He'd said his name was Morgan, and he was her guardian. He was good looking, she supposed, for a man with a salt and pepper beard, age lines and a hook nose. His voice was strangely accented to her ears. And he was not much larger than Adam had been. He was considerably smaller than Flynn and Neely, but Charity felt he was much more dangerous. He moved with a cat-like grace and efficiency she'd never seen before. His lack of response to her temper tantrum somehow made her even angrier. She picked up a silver chalice, and sent it spinning at his head. He sidestepped the projectile, and caught it on the fly in one smooth motion.
“This is even older than the vase, and is one of my favorites,” he said, as he placed in onto a shelf near him. “I'd prefer to keep it in good shape, if you don't mind. I'd also like it if you'd consider me your friend. I really am here to help you, you know.”
Charity glared at him. “Then let me go!”
“I'm sorry. I can't do that. As I've told you before.”
Charity screamed again in frustration and rage, and threw herself onto the huge bed, and began sobbing as if her heart were broken.
She felt a gentle hand touch her shoulder. “Please, Milady. Let me be your friend. Ask anything else of me, and I will gladly do it.”
She spun around on the bed, and threw a punch at him that would have stunned a larger man if it had connected. He shifted to the side just enough to cause her fist to pass by his head. He caught her wrist with his hand, and gently laid her hand back onto her lap.
Charity looked into his eyes, and tried to find anger in them. All she saw was a calm, placid kindness and deep self-assurance. The wall of her rage broke, and she threw herself into his arms, sobbing out her grief.
Morgan held his charge gently and let her cry. He would hold her like this as long as she needed him. This was his job and not even the pit could turn him from it.
* * * *
The blizzard's winds shrieked in their fury, driving the swirling snow with the force of an ice-bladed sledgehammer. Gilgafed stood at the entrance of his cave, and savored the storm. When he finally came back to power, he would insure that the entire world had storms such as this.
“Master?”
He turned to see his servant, Cobain scuttling towards him. The bandy-legged little fellow was bundled against the cold within a heavily furred cloak, and his breath created clouds in the freezing air. “What is it, Cobain?”
“Your repast awaits, Master.” Cobain's teeth chattered despite his heavy cloak. He was beginning to lose feeling in the tip of his nose.
“Ah, yes. Thank you, Cobain. You may go, but first collect six of those icicles for me. There's a good fellow.”
Cobain looked in the direction his master pointed, and his heart sank. The icicles indicated were suspended from a ledge that bore the full fury of the storm.
“Well, go on. Be quick, now. I wish them to cool my wine.” His master's tone became petulant, and Cobain knew he had no chance but to obey. He sighed and wrapped a fold of the cloak around so it covered his mouth and hid one of his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he ventured out into the blizzard.
“Good man.” Gilgafed called. “Bring them to me as soon as you can. I'll be at my dinner.” He turned and walked back into the cave.
* * * *
“Hard work, this.” Flynn wiped his brow. He was sweating in spite of the chill in the air. Flurries of flakes swirled about and settled onto the pile of wood they were chopping for the kitchens.
“Reminds me of a time back when I was fresh from th’ monk's school.” Neely grunted as he swung the ax.
“Oh?”
“Aye.” Neely placed another piece of wood onto the block. “I'd snuck out the’ back way. Never did take much to schoolin', ya know.”
Flynn chuckled and stacked the wood. “Aye, I know.”
“Well, I was gettin mighty hungry by the’ time I found th’ farm. I talked th’ farmer into lettin’ me chop wood for me supper. ‘Bout halfway through the cord his daughter come out with a jug o’ lemin squash.”
“I see.”
“Ah, yer gettin’ ahead o’ me, bucko. Seems her daddy had to check on a problem in th’ fields, so she'd come to check on me. Seein’ it was summer an’ all, I had me shirt off. She was admirin’ the view, so to speak.” He swung the ax, and Flynn gathered the pieces.
“Since it was such a hot day, she decided to offer me a dip in th’ creek. We wound up takin’ a dip together.”
Flynn's laughter echoed across the yard.
“Oh, aye, me first one it was. Always liked choppin’ wood after that.” He swung the ax again.
* * * *
“It took you long enough! My wine was getting insufferably warm” Gilgafed greeted his shivering servant with a g
lare.
His teeth chattering uncontrollably, Cobain fitted the icicles into the chaser that held the wine bottle. From the look of the wax around the cork, it was one of the old ones.
“Ahhh. That's better. This vintage needs to be properly chilled to enhance the subtleties of the snails.”
Cobain looked at his master's dinner. The chilling bottle of wine lay in its chaser next to a plate of snails. The snails moved. Cobain felt his gorge beginning to rise. A small bowl of scented water at the boil was in front of the plate of snails, center on. Lemon and a few sprigs of herbs lay on a small plate next to a stack of sour bread toast and a bowl of lightly steaming drawn butter.
Gilgafed picked up one of the snails with a set of silver tongs, and dipped it in the hot water. Bubbles rose to the surface and broke, releasing glistening green concentric circles. He placed the herbs in the water, and then removed the snail after about a minute. Holding it upside down with the tongs he squeezed a few drops of lemon into the shell, and then brought it down sharply onto the table. Using a toothpick from a silver holder, he then stabbed the quivering snail flesh, dipped it into the butter, and popped the morsel into his mouth. His eyes closed as he savored the flavor and texture while he chewed. He then opened his eyes, and reached for the bottle of wine. His gaze caught Cobain as he worked the wax away from the cork. The Sorcerer paused to place another snail into the water. “Cobain. You're still here? These are simply marvelous. You must try one.”
The Sorcerer's servant could contain himself no longer. Slapping his hand over his mouth, he ran from his master's presence, his complexion a decided green in color.
Gilgafed smiled to himself as he worked the ancient cork out of the bottle.
* * * *
Cloutier tapped the hen's egg with the small silver knife made for just that purpose. The eggshell cracked along the path of his tapping, and he deftly lifted the top section away from the base. The stench that reached his nostrils caused them to wrinkle in disgust. He placed the top section carefully back onto the eggshell.
“Youch!”
His manservant opened the door to his chamber. “Milord?”
Cloutier pushed the spoiled egg away from his place setting. “This is rotten. Find out from the kitchens where these eggs were acquired, and have the farm kindled.”